In a statement to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini urged both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to "demonstrate with acts" that their commitment to the two-state solution "is real and not just fake" or "just an empty slogan."

Mogherini, who met Monday in Brussels with Abbas and last week with Netanyahu, also said that in the next few weeks Mideast Quartet representatives will engage directly with the parties in order to kick-start peace talks.

“I have asked both Netanyahu and Abbas to receive the Quartet envoys in the coming days, not weeks,” Mogherini said, saying there was a need to contain violence, promote calm and create a political horizon after the current surge in violence.

The Quartet, which comprises the US, the UN, the EU and Russia, was set up in 2002 to promote the Middle East Peace Process.

Mogherini warned the European parliament that there is a risk the Israeli-Palestinian dispute could get caught up in new conflicts in the region if the parties do not make an effort now to secure peace based on a two-state solution.

"This is a risky time for Israelis and Palestinians alike... it is not business as usual in managing the old conflict," she told the members of the European Parliament, calling on Israeli and Palestinian leaders ‘’to show leadership and responsibility’’.

‘’Time is now for decisions, Israeli and Palestinian leaders will have to take courageous choices,’’ she said. ‘’Both leaderships have a responsibility to promote calm, to contain the situation of violence and to promote calm. They have an interest in doing this for their own people. An they have a general responsibility towards the region and I would say towards the rest of the world to make sure that the situation doesn’t inflame on the religious level and get spread all across the globe,’’ she said. ‘’We must not lose sight of the underlying causes of tensions : the frustrations, the sense of insecurity, the lack of hope, the lack of political horizon,’’ she added.

The three elements needed to be worked on in parallel are ''de-escalating the security aspects, violence, implementing concrete steps on the ground and creating the conditions for a political horizon,’’ she said.

She stressed that peace is possible ‘’only in a renewed regional framework.’’ ‘’Our Arab partners have stressed to me their readiness to work with the Quartet.

"If anyone believes we can just contain this... they are wrong. Every cycle of violence is going to be worse (than the previous one)," she said.

Mogherini said it was essential to build confidence, to show the two sides by concrete actions on the ground that "they have a future in their lands".

According to Israeli daily Haaretz, a French initiative to arrange a face to face meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort to quell the latest flare-up in violence received Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stamp of approval but Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has yet to respond.

Last week, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius reportedly tried to set up a summit in Paris between the two leaders via visiting Israel's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Silvan Shalom, who guaranteed Netanyahu's willingness to participate. The Palestinian leader, however, failed to respond to the offer, senior Israeli officials told Haaretz.